Board Games
by thelittlebluepencil
Summary: Sherlock wakes up and finds himself - much to his dismay - into a game of Cluedo, and discovers that the characters look oddly familiar.


_I've taken a few liberties with the Cluedo game, mixing up the classic board version, the interactive and single-player version on my phone with role playing mystery games._

**Board Games**

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Sherlock woke up in an unfamiliar room, sprawled on a very expensive Persian rug and fully clothed – thank god.

He got up, rubbed his neck and straightened his suit.

The first thing he noticed was that he was in a wine cellar, one of the walls in front of him full of racks of wine bottles.

The second thing he noticed was the corpse on the above mentioned Persian Rug in the middle of the room. He immediately thought 'corpse' out of habit. He gave himself the benefit of the doubt and bent to check for a pulse. Nothing.

So, corpse it was.

He turned the corpse's head and realised he was familiar.

"Moriarty..." he murmured, raising an eyebrow. He should have recognised the black Westwood suit, Jim surely would have never forgiven him.

He didn't remember how he had ended up in this place, but if Moriarty were involved, Sherlock imagined he never would.

What was odd was the idea of Moriarty dead. Someone or something had killed him. Could it have been him?

The door at the top of the stairs opened and John entered, wearing a jumper a much brighter yellow than he usually wore. But Sherlock didn't infer anything particularly strange about it.

"Oh, Sherlock, here you are, please, come and help me!" he gestured to the room he had just left and kept the door open for him.

Sherlock was now in a plush sitting room, and on the expensive sofa in front of the lit fireplace was a sobbing Molly in a bright blue cocktail dress.

"Jim," she wailed, wiping her eyes on a tissue John handed her, "oh my God he's dead! I can't believe it!" she sobbed and sobbed and her words didn't make much sense to Sherlock, but John, who had much more experience understanding crying women translated the strange sounds she made into something resembling actual words.

"Wait, John, where are we?"

John shrugged and pointed at the large window which presented a beautiful view of the English countryside outside. "Moriarty's mansion."

"Is there anyone else?"

"Of course, Sherlock. Are you alright? You were investigating Jim's murder, remember? I think you fell down the stairs to the cellar."

Molly sobbed louder, and John passed a hand around her shoulder.

"I'll go talk to the others," Sherlock said, leaving.

He chose a door at random and found himself in a large and spotless kitchen, where Mrs Hudson, all dressed in white, was conversing with Mycroft, who sported a rather appalling green tie and umbrella and looked like he was just returning from celebrating St. Patrick's day. Well, just the clothes, not the drunk off his ass part, even if Mrs Hudson had placed a rather large drink in front of him and had fixed a full glass of sherry for herself.

"Oh, Sherlock, dear," she said when she spotted him, "it's dreadful, that horrible murder in the house. Do you have any idea who might have done it?"

Sherlock glanced over her shoulder at Mycroft, who shook his head as he sipped his drink carefully.

Everything looked a bit surreal to Sherlock, fuzzy at the edges.

"Not yet," he answered, without even needing to think. "Is there anyone else here?" he asked, and Mycroft raised an eyebrow at him.

"Of course, there is my assistant too." He turned and grabbed a glass from the cupboard. "Maybe you hit your head too hard before. Do you need a drink?"

Mycroft was behaving oddly. And well... dressing strangely too.

Everyone was.

"I think she was in the library just now." Mrs. Hudson pointed at the other door.

Beyond the door lay the dining room, which was empty, so Sherlock took the other door and wandered into the corridor until he reached the library, where he found Anthea sprawled on the sofa wearing a slinky red silk dress.

He blinked and stared. Although she usually wore killer heels, her preferences for clothing generally went towards sensible smart dresses while at the service of his brother. And he didn't know her outside of her line of work.

Sherlock said her name – her real name – and she tutted at him, rising from the sofa and lifting her heavy hair from her neck and back to fluff the curls. "Have you found anything?"

"Not yet. I think I have to start examining the house for evidence all over again. Maybe we should all gather in the sitting room," he proposed, shocking himself with his words.

Somehow, he felt _he_ was a bit out of character too.

"Fine with me."

She followed him to the sitting room, and then Sherlock went to the kitchen to summon his brother and landlady and have tea made.

Once they were all sitting around the coffee table, each with a cup of tea, Sherlock looked at them and realised something.

"Oh, God. We're playing Cluedo," he groaned, taking into consideration the detail of their clothes and the mismatched personalities.

"What are you talking about, dear?" Asked Mrs. Hudson-White.

Sherlock gestured at the room they were in, "the Tudor Mansion in the countryside, Mr. Black dead, I mean, Jim Moriarty."

Molly started sobbing again, and Mrs. Hudson-White passed a hand around her shoulder. John glared at Sherlock, but got pushed out of the way by Anthea-Scarlett, who took Molly's hand to comfort her.

"Why haven't I seen it before?" he asked, then pointed at them in turn, "Mrs. Hudson is Mrs. White, Molly is Ms Peacock, Mycroft's assistant is Miss Scarlett, my brother is Mr. Green, and John is Colonel Mustard," he said with a shudder, then felt their collective gaze on him. He looked down at his own shirt. "And apparently, I'm Professor Plum." He rolled his eyes. "And I'm a murder suspect too."

"So one of us must have murdered Moriarty?" John asked, and was about to add something about it not being a big loss, but stopped himself before he made Molly cry again.

"Someone must have; he certainly didn't off himself. He was not the type," Sherlock replied flatly, then took a minute to consider the situation again. He looked at the group. "I need to see what weapons are in the house."

John-Mustard lifted his jumper and put his gun on the coffee table, Mrs. Hudson-White opened her handbag and took out a sharp kitchen knife, Anthea-Scarlett opened her own purse and took out a nail file, and Molly took out of her pocket a bottle of pills. Mycroft shrugged and put the umbrella beside the other weapons, and again, everyone looked at Sherlock, who rummaged about his pockets and, much to his surprise, took out his pair of leather gloves.

"Great, we have at least six weapons, six suspects, and," he scrunched up his face, "let me guess, nine rooms?"

"Plus the cellar." Mycroft-Green reminded him.

"Two bedrooms, a library, a big bathroom, a study, the kitchen, a dining room, the entrance hall and this sitting room," Anthea-Scarlett listed off, counting them on her fingers, one pinkie remaining standing.

Sherlock passed a hand through his hair. "Maybe we should start investigating in a normal way. I need to examine the body. John, with me."

John rose and followed him to the door that led to the cellar, but it was inexplicably locked.

"Clearly, we must guess in the usual way," he huffed and turned to face the others in the room. "I don't suppose any of you has a spare forensic kit?"

Molly checked her purse. And then shook her head in defeat.

Sherlock raised his hands in desperation and examined his companions. "Alibis and motives," he said then. "Clearly we were all locked up here and none of us has an alibi, I assume. So it shall be just motives."

Anthea-Scarlett removed her hand from around Molly's shoulder and flicked her hair back. "He stole my kohl pencil."

John turned towards her and stared, wide-eyed. "And that's motive for murder?"

"Clearly, you don't know her well enough," Mycroft reproached him.

"And you, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked, walking behind the armchair the man was sitting in and placing his hands on Mycroft's shoulders. He leaned forward and whispered in his brother's ear "some deep dark shameful tryst you want to tell me about?"

Mycroft crossed his legs and straightened his tie, "even if there were, it wouldn't be any of your business," he whispered so that only Sherlock and John could hear. John made a very surprised face.

Sherlock turned to his flatmate then. "John. I suppose you're still a bit pissed off about the pool." He tried to leave out the most sensitive details to protect Mrs. Hudson and Molly.

John grunted in agreement.

Sherlock squatted in front of Molly and gently put one hand on her knee. "Molly... did you have a motive?" he said in the kindest, most compassionate voice he could muster.

She sobbed once and wiped her eyes. "He... he dumped me." She lifted her chin and looked into his eyes. "For _you_, he said." Then she snatched another tissue and blew her nose loudly.

John turned towards Sherlock, who looked completely unfazed by that revelation.

The detective then turned to face Mrs-Hudson. "And you, Mrs. Hudson, what would be your motive? I didn't even realise you knew Jim."

Mrs. Hudson huffed at him, "He stole my recipe for the green tea scones and posted it on his blog," she narrowed her eyes and added a whispered aside. "Knew the secret ingredient too..."

"Well, it just leaves me and my dislike for his manners and inability to play nice. Not a problem anymore, now," he added without much tact.

John stated the obvious, as usual. "So, we all had at least a flimsy motive to off him. But nothing that it proves we did. Right?"

"Correct, John. I need to examine the weapons." He grabbed a pouf and sat in front of the coffee table to have a better look at the random objects on the table.

Sherlock counted the bullets in the gun and found two missing, so he put it aside; he found traces of blood on the knife, so he put that aside as well; the nail file was clean and he handed it back to Anthea, which left him with a perfectly reasonable excuse to touch and examine his brother's umbrella.

He grabbed it by the handle and Mycroft stilled him. "Careful," he warned, giving a side glance at Mrs. Hudson. "You don't want to reveal state secrets here."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and offered Mycroft a private strip search of the umbrella, to which Mycroft replied it was entirely unnecessary.

"Really, you still haven't figured out the culprit, yet?" Mycroft teased him, and Sherlock pulled the object open in front of everyone, examined it all, turned it around and then checked its secret trigger.

The umbrella was clean, perfectly so, and Sherlock asked himself how long ago he had seen Mycroft kill someone with his umbrella. Long enough, he guessed.

Sherlock discarded the umbrella, opened the bottle of drugs and found it half empty, enough drugs missing to overdose a few people.

Finally the detective examined his own gloves, finding scratches on the top of them.

So he was left with gun, knife, drugs and his own gloves, and four suspects.

Time to narrow down rooms.

And considering there were nine of them, he thought he could use some help. Sherlock looked at the only two suspects he had eliminated – Mycroft and his assistant – and sighed. "Fine, Mycroft, come with me, I trust your assistant can watch over the others?"

Mycroft rose from his chair and brushed his trousers. "You know I dislike legwork," Mycroft said, but followed Sherlock out of the room.

"Pity, because you could really use more of it." Sherlock said snidely, as they moved on to the kitchen, and Mycroft assured him he had already checked the place as he prepared the drinks.

"Why doesn't it surprise me?" Sherlock said, closing the last cupboard door, shutting rows of canned vegetables away.

"Doesn't it bore you, to keep teasing me about the diet? Should I ask you about John?" he asked as he opened the door to the dining room, which they started examining for clues. It was recently dusted and nothing was out of the ordinary.

"What about John?" Sherlock asked innocently, as they got out of the dining room and into the corridor leading to the library.

Mycroft started lifting and examining books. "As if."

"Your assistant was here earlier, lounging on that sofa like a sleek cat," Sherlock said, recalling the scene. "Sometimes it's easy to forget that you don't just employ her for her looks."

"Are you trying to imply something inappropriate?" Mycroft raised an eyebrow and put down the sofa cushion.

"Not at all. Damn, this place is spotless too," he complained, putting the book he was reading back to his shelf.

"Let's move on to the other rooms then." Mycroft opened the door and then the one across in the corridor. "Bathroom."

Sherlock shrugged and together they went over the inspection of the bathroom. "Not even traces of blood in the drain. I'm getting impatient. How many more rooms?"

"Just the studio and the two bedrooms."

Sherlock scratched his head. "Two bedrooms," he repeated, "and there's six of us, so, how long have we been staying here? I haven't shared a room with you, John and Moriarty, have I?"

Mycroft smirked instead of replying, and Sherlock saw it in the reflection in the mirror. That was all he needed to panic.

"Well... the studio next." The room was small, and they finished quickly, which left them with the task of examining the bedrooms.

"Do we start with our room or the ladies'?" Mycroft asked, considering the possibilities.

"Are you concerned about unnecessarily breaching their privacy or do you want to rummage through your assistant's lacy lingerie?"

"Will you stop it, please? We'll start with our room," they entered it and saw traces of struggle everywhere.

"Just so you know, this," Mycroft gestured at the only unmade bed in the room, "is your bed, and this morning it wasn't like this. Got up to some naughtiness with John?"

"How should I know? I don't remember anything before I woke up in the cellar." He took out his magnifying glass and examined the sheets. "Oh God." He picked up a few dark hairs, shorter than his and straight. "Come here, My." When his brother got close enough he grabbed his hair and pulled.

"Ouch! What did you do that for?"

But Sherlock was too busy comparing the hairs. "This..." he held the hair he picked up from the bed, "isn't mine, it's not yours and most definitely is not John's."

Mycroft gave him a serious look. "We should go back to the sitting room."

"Mycroft, I think I might have killed Moriarty."

His brother opened the door and gestured for him to follow him to the corridor. "That's not how you say it."

Sherlock sighed, "FINE." He made an attempt to say it, but Mycroft put a hand on his mouth.

"Wait until we are in the sitting room."

Sherlock huffed and followed him. As soon as he was inside the door he captured everyone's attention. "It was me, Sherlock, Professor Plum, however you want it, in the bedroom, with the gloves. I killed Jim Moriarty."

Mycroft smiled at him. "Well, good riddance."

When Sherlock opened his eyes next, he was on the floor of 221B, looking into a very concerned face.

"Sherlock? Are you ok? You fainted. You can't go on like this."

"How long was I unconscious?"

"A few seconds?"

"I sort of dreamt I killed Moriarty in a game of Cluedo..." he let his gaze trail down from John's neck, finding something extremely reassuring. "Hm, I love that striped jumper," he said, grabbing it in an unsteady hand.

"Well, let me help you to the sofa before you try anything, ok?" John joked, helping him up, and dragging him to the sofa. He helped Sherlock lie down and then sat on the floor beside him. "So your brain flashed and came up with a dream?"

"It was more than a dream, John, it felt... more real. It had sense, complexity, coherence! It was so odd. And you wore a yellow jumper," Sherlock said, trying to sit up, but John blocked him with one hand, keeping him horizontal.

"You said Cluedo, so I was Colonel Mustard?" he asked with a little smile. "Now rest, ok?" John bent forward and kissed Sherlock on the forehead.

"Oddly enough, Lestrade wasn't there, but Mycroft was," Sherlock started to narrate, but John gave him a stern look and pushed him a bit harder on the sofa.

"I said, rest. And that's final. I'll make you a cup of tea and you can tell me everything when your face isn't as white as your shirt anymore."


End file.
